


Lotidge One Shots

by Kinshula



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Human, Lotidge Week 2017, One-Shots, fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-22 13:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12482792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kinshula/pseuds/Kinshula
Summary: Two one-shots that didn't fit in with At Half-Light, done for Lotidge Week.Fight: Pidge takes a young Lotor under her guardianship to make up for her past, and so he can have a future.Human: Pidge struggles to define who she is in the face of evil.





	1. Chapter 1

She got the text at 5:28 in the morning. She had laid her phone out on the pillow, right beside her ear so that when it went off it would wake her, and not Lotor. She rolled over in the bed, the blanket tangling with her legs as her thumb turned down the brightness on the phone and read what it said with squinted eyes. She sighed and swung her legs off the bed. 

In the dark she pulled on her jeans and straightened out the black t-shirt she had worn to bed. From underneath the pillow she fished out the five inch black steel Remington knife she had slept with. She turned on the lamp on the desk of the hotel room and from the drawer she pulled out the pistol she had stashed there earlier. Pidge racked the slide and checked the magazine.

She turned around to look at Lotor, who slept in the other bed. He slept on his stomach, one arm slung off the side. Nineteen years old and this was his first night away from home. He didn't even rouse when she turned the light back off and slid the pistol into the waistband of her jeans. She left the hotel room and was careful to lock the door behind her. 

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed Hunk.

“What's the ETA?” She asked. 

“Two arriving in about ten minutes based off their communications,” Hunk said. “I can't help you with anything else.”

“The warning is nice,” She said, stepping into the elevator. “What's this kid's deal anyway? I took him to McDonald's yesterday and he tried to eat a hamburger with a knife and fork. I also didn't realize I was in the kidnapping business.”

“Allura just wanted him protected.”

“I'll do what you paid me to do,” she said. 

The call cut and the elevator door opened into the parking garage. White light washed over Pidge's vision as she stepped out into the garage, eyes scanning the lines of cars. She leaned back against the wall near the elevator and eight minutes later a sleek, black vehicle pulled into the garage. It parked on the other side of the garage, at the midpoint between the stairs and the exit. Pidge pulled the pistol from her waistband and ducked behind a car as two men got out. 

Zarkon didn't know she was involved. These guys thought they were chasing down an oblivious, sheltered rich boy. All the better for her. 

She waited behind the car until they walked past her and then stepped out of the shadows. She pulled the trigger on the closest and the bullet ripped through his chest. The other man reached for the holster under his suit jacket but Pidge put him in the sights and shot him in the throat. He collapsed to the ground. She stood over them and put a bullet in each of their heads, the shots echoing over the empty garage, amplified by the empty space.

She moved each of the bodies under a different car, to buy herself time before someone found the murder. Pidge put the pistol back in her waistband as she got back in the elevator and went back to the twentieth floor. She caught her breath, her chin bowing to her chest before she opened her eyes as the door slid open.   
In the apartment she threw Lotor's bag at his sleeping form, jerking him awake. “Get up, we need to leave.”

“What time is it?” He asked, sitting up.

Pidge checked her watch. “Five forty-five.”

Lotor didn't complain, he just pulled on his jeans and a jacket over his tank-top. He was still tying the laces for his sneakers when Pidge urged them out the door. She didn't bother with checking out of the hotel and they left out a back door into an alleyway. Three blocks away she found a car parked in an overnight parking lot that she broke into and hot wired to steal. 

Lotor slept in the passenger seat as she drove them out of the city. His hand brushed up against his forehead, hair falling around his shoulders. He had dark brown skin and silver hair, almost down to his hips. She would have to cut that when they stopped next, it was too signifying. He was too, pretty, his skin too smooth, his clothes a little too nice for a teenager. Someone took care of him. 

Pidge drove until her stomach grumbled and she had to pull over in a gas station. She bought her and Lotor breakfast in the form of honey buns and pop tarts from the store. They mentioned on their purified sugar in processed pastry form while streaking down the interstate. 

“What is in this?” Lotor asked.

“Strawberry,” Pidge said. “Corn syrup. Boiled in preservatives to keep it stable at room temperature. I doubt it's as good as the fancy stuff they made you back at home.”

“It's the best thing ever.”

“Perspective, I suppose," she said. 

“Who came after us this morning?” Lotor asked, looking out the window.

“Two of your dad's goons,” she said. “Don't worry about it, I took care of it.”

“You killed them?” he guessed.

She didn't answer. 

“I saw what you did to that man when we left,” Lotor continued. “I never, it was horrible--”

“That's the world,” she said, interrupting his thought. “It's horrible. People are violent and horrible. I can't protect you from that, you have to face it now. I won't be here forever Lotor. We're going to keep moving until we're given the clear, and then I'll help you start a new life. After that, you're on your own."

“Teach me how to fight,” he said, turning to face her. “How to shoot.”

“Okay,” she said, and that was the end of the conversation. 

They drove until the sun set on the horizon and Pidge bought a cheap motel room off the interstate. A pedunk room with two beds and a gaudy carpet and an old tube TV. She had Lotor shove all the furniture to the wall, stack the mattresses and the frames. In the fifteen-by-fifteen space she had him stand in the middle of it.

“Feet out like this, toes forward,” she ordered, “now bend your knees, farther, until it hurts to hold it.”

“How is this going to help me fight?” He asked wirily.

“Eyes forward,” she said coldly, coming around him, she placed her hand on his shoulder and then pushed her heel into his knees to force them to bend. “This is your foundation. Everything you do is built up from here. Neglect it, and you'll die in your first fight.”

“Okay,” he said.

She made him hold that stance for several minutes. Then she taught him the blocks. Lotor struggled to order his arms for the chambers and she ended up physically guiding his hands. Once he had the basic motion down she mirrored his stance and the block with him, and then had him block her forearms. He followed her pattern, wincing each time their forearms clashed but he kept her pace till he had the motion. 

For the punches she taught him to widen his stance and to punch from the hip. She made him do hundreds for each of the targets, solar plex, face, groin, until sweat beaded on his temples. She didn't spend a lot of time on the kicks, just the basic chamber and kick system for a front kick. She'd work him into that once he had a better sense of his balance. Lotor was athletic, but he had a personal trainer when he was home. He didn't have the tiny muscle connections required for the complexity of martial arts.

“Good,” she said, tossing him a bottle of water. “That's enough for now. Come over here.”

On the table she had completely disassembled her pistol. She handed Lotor a piece of paper with the diagrams for each of the parts. “Until you can, dissemble, and reassemble this pistol, and have all the parts and their functions memorized, you can't fire this weapon. Have at it.”

Lotor never once complained about the steep climb she demanded on him. They would stop for the night and she would force him to work out for two, sometimes three hours, and then spend the rest of the night studying the pistol. It shocked her though when just a week later he called her over to the desk in the hotel they were staying at, and in rapid fire pointed out every part of the disassembled pistol, it's function, and then put it back together. He racked the slide and handed it to her by the barrel.

“Okay, then,” Pidge said, taking the pistol from him. “We'll start shooting tomorrow.”

Pidge pulled over on the side of the road in the smack dab middle of a strip of Arizona desert. The moment she stepped out of the air conditioned car she started sweating, nearly baking in the hot sun. She walked Lotor out across the desert, carrying with her a card board box filled with cans. She dumped out the box, set it down on the sand, and put a can on top of it. She walked back to Lotor.

“Never, ever, ever,” she said. “Point this at someone you don't intend to kill. Don't draw a gun unless you intend to kill. Okay, stance goes like this, either foot can be forward but put your left on the bottom of the gun, there, away from the heat exhaust. Point down range, squeeze the trigger.”

Pidge stepped back as Lotor took aim, fired, and missed. He flinched when the gun went off and it nearly flew up into his face.

“Buddy,” Pidge said, shoving her hands in her pants pockets and them immediately took them out because it was too hot for that. “You're six foot five and that's a nine millimeter, you gotta hold it tight. Inhale, exhale completely, pull the trigger.”

By the end of the hour, he could hit the can from ten meters, not consistently, but for his first day of shooting that was pretty good. Pidge packed them up and they kept on down the highway. That was how their lives went, whenever they stopped Pidge would run Lotor through the paces of something. She made him memorize medicine and first aid instructions. Taught him Gojo-ryu karate kata in rest area parking lots, and how to punch using motel pillows, in a few weeks he could spar with her. She ran rings around him, but he learned as fast as she could teach. 

One night as she watched him working through one of the katas, sitting on the edge of a sidewalk curb, a coke dangling between her leg she saw it. Lotor moved just like he used to. They were both tall, lanky, Pidge supposed, but the similarity was uncanny. The man who taught Pidge those katas and the strategy behind them, the softness, the elegance, the brutality, the breaking, and destruction, had imprinted on her in a way she could never describe. Just watching that man work through the movements with a level of confidence and beauty was a gift of itself. What she hadn't known was that what she had learned would move from him to Pidge to Lotor. Lotor had never met the man that saved her life and he never would, but by some means he had learned to mimic him only through the refraction that Pidge provided. 

Pidge leaned back and only nodded when Lotor finished the form. He started the next and she pushed herself up. She didn't hit him hard, just taps to the ribs and to his solar plex, checking his stance, his breath, the clench of his core muscles. He still rocked back on his heels. He pushed through to the next movement. Pidge put one foot back and kicked into his gut. She remembered when her teacher did that kick to her, night-after-night, when she was too small to take it until one day she decided she wouldn't anymore. She braced, put her strength in her core, and are it but she didn't budge. Lotor fell on his back. 

"Seriously?" He asked, as he stood. 

"Be ready next time," she warned, and he started the kata again.

Eight weeks after the first night, and three weeks until they got the all clear to settle, Pidge stopped them at a gas station at ten pm on a Thursday night. She went inside to pay, Lotor watched the pump, as had become their constant. She bought them sodas, snacks, and chips, paid, then walked outside, bags in hand. 

Lotor noticed them right when she did, three guys walking across the parking lot towards them. They wore street clothes but their body language was too forward and aggressive to just be looking for casual conversation. Pidge put her bags into the trunk, pretending not to notice them. She slammed the trunk closed and tossed Lotor the keys over the car before turning to face the men.

“Can I help you guys?” She asked. 

“We're looking for someone,” the leader said, a large bald man with diamond earrings. On the other side of the car, Pidge noted that Lotor had lowered his head. They had dyed his hair black and buzzed it a few weeks ago. “Tall, skinny guy, white hair, about twenty, seen anyone like that?”

“Can't say I have,” Pidge said, she walked around the car towards the door.

“C'mon bitch,” Said one of them, he had a rotten teeth. “We know you got him.”

They began to move to surround her, Pidge moved back only to bump into the car. The tallest advanced on her, Pidge went foot-to-foot, and side kicked him in the throat, he fell to his knees gagging. Arms wrapped around her waist and picked her up. She drove her heel into his knee and dropped her hips, forcing him to lower her. Pidge pushed them both back until he was trapped between her and the car. 

The bald guy moved in on her, he punched her in the gut but she ate it and didn't even flinch. He hooked her across the jaw. Pidge kicked him in the gut, grabbed the arms around her waist, dropped her hips underneath him and then threw him clear over her head to slam into the ground. She smashed the toe of her foot against his temple, knocking him out before charging the bald guy.

Pidge struck him in the jaw with her palm, drove her elbow down on his sternum, and jumped, tackling him to the ground. She elbowed him across the face and turned in time to see the man with the rotten tooth brandishing a crowbar and swinging down on her. Suddenly he stopped, and then collapsed. Lotor had gotten the tire iron from the trunk, and hit him hard enough to drop him. 

“I'm sorry,” he stuttered. “I froze-up.”

“Get in the car,” She ordered, picking herself up on the ground.

She removed the pump from the car and clambered in. Lotor slunk against the window, as he watched cars fly by in the right lane of the interstate. Pidge kept her eyes on the road, but she glanced at him. He didn't look at her, maybe he had been worried for her? Maybe he had been scared. It had been years since she had sat where he had. In the passenger seat, the one taking the kicks and the cold instructions designed to make her stronger. To prepare her for when the teacher wasn't there, for when the real coldness and the real brutality that he protected her from. 

She still remembered the man that pulled her out of the rubble of the house in Israel, destroyed by a bomb dropped by an unseen plane. His dark hair and eyes, he was kinder then her, but Pidge had never been soft. When she looked over at Lotor she saw the chance to repay a debt she thought there was too much to interest to collect on.

“You know,” She said. She looked back out on the road. “For your first fight, that was pretty good.”


	2. Human

Pidge jumped to the top of the embankment and let Yaro navigate the slippery slope for herself. Yaro considered the last obstacle out of the creek bed, a collapsed root, and made a bold jump. She landed safe on even ground. Pidge praised her and lead Yaro onto the trail. She pushed her foot into the stirrup and mounted in one, smooth move. 

“C'mon girl,” Pidge said.

It had been four days since she left. No one from the village had come galloping after her. Mom hadn't taken another horse and tracked her down. No guards. Nothing but steady riding North. The shield slung to Yaro's saddle remained covered by the blanket Pidge had thrown over it. Her shorn head no longer felt strange but she still instinctively reached up to fix a strand every now and again only to find there was nothing to fix. 

They passed out of the forest after two days of rugged trails and into open fields. Wheat for miles, growing gold for the harvest. Small homes grew lush flower beds in the front yards with fruits, veggies, some rotting in the late summer heat. Farmers that she passed stood up and stared, watching her pass with narrowed eyes hidden by the broad brims of their straw hats. Pidge lowered her eyes to each one, hiding her face under her hood. 

So rare did people leave their homes. Every night the Galra ran raids on single travelers who dared venture beyond the security of the villages. Monsters lurked in the shadows. Go outside after dark and risk getting eaten by wolves. Fear hung heavy in the air, the scent of a subjugated country, or maybe it was Pidge's own growling gut and pounding heart. 

She rode into the village just when the sun began it's final crest towards the horizon and coated the wooden houses in gold. Eyes tracked her, kids stopped playing, a man followed her twenty feet back his hand on his sword and looking twitchy. She disembarked in front of a street vendor, selling scrawny cooked chickens and sad veggies. 

“How much for tomatoes and a chicken?” She asked. 

“Three gak,” he said. 

He was stealing from her but contesting it would make a scene and she was already a play on the stage. Pidge counted out her last three coins and placed them on the table. She was rolled three sorry tomatoes and a hunk of cold, cooked chicken wrapped in a hemp cloth.

“Thanks,” She said. 

“You shouldn't stay the night here,” the shop keeper suggested. “Move along.”

“Rather be here then on the road at night,” Pidge.

“That's what a lot of people say.”

“Is there something you want to mention?” She asked, narrowing her eyes. 

“Hang around,” The shop keeper chuckled darkly. The kind of laugh and grin that the men got when the dog fighting rings were in town. Laughing about something sadistic and she had a feeling she was the dog. “And you'll see.”

Pidge stepped back from the counter. “I'll keep it in mind.”

She lead Yaro into a secluded spot in the village square. Pidge tied Yaro next to a post by a water trough and poured her a dinner of millet. Pidge sat under the oak tree in the center of the square and ate her dinner. As she watched, several children came out with a ball of rags to play. They kicked the ball around the square, squealing with laughter until it rolled to Pidge's feet. They stopped playing and stared at her with wide eyes, staying at least ten feet back.

One child, a skinny young girl, was shoved forward while the older boys snickered. Pidge stood, and the girl flinched away. PIdge kicked the ball back to them and sat back down. They played on, notably being more careful of her. Underneath her cloak Pidge played with the lights of her magic, letting the thin green power dance about her fingers. Most people could feel magic, or know those who made use of it, particullary one as powerful as her. They might not understand the strange fear they know when they see her, but they still feel it and were driven by it.

Born under one of five stars of a dragon constellation Pidge was gifted --or cursed-- with a magic unlike any other. In her seventeen years she had come no closer to understanding it. Her brother and father, mages kidnapped for King Zarkon's war with Altea, had taught her what they could but she could feel it. They had feared her too. Now they were gone and Pidge was no longer tolerated at home. So she searched for things she didn't know. Maybe it was her family, maybe it was understanding of her power, maybe it was just a sense of peace.

 

She supposed she would sleep here tonight.

Yet, when the sun slipped below the horizon, things changed. The kids were hurried inside by worried mothers who casted eyes towards the sky where the two full moons rose, before slamming the doors behind them. The shop venders packed up quick. The tavern was emptied and everyone stumbled home, early drinks all around. One man though, too drunk or too stupid or too much of an outsider to have a place, remained in the square with Pidge. He was arguing with someone. 

That someone was no one. He stumbled around. Pointed his finger at invisible onlookers, yelled, shouted. Pidge watched the shoe with quirked eye brow. The argument followed along the lines of being about his daughter. A daughter who left him? No, a daughter that had died, and his wife blamed him. He blamed him. Pidge began to stand, maybe she should help him find a seat.

They rode into town on black horses that spewed smoke and soot from their hooves. Galra Knights in black cloaks and purple armor that shone under the moonlight, reflecting the yellow glow of their eyes. Ten in total they road in formation straight into the square. The soldiers dismounted from their monstrous steeds and began to sweep through the houses. Gathering children, women, men who were too terrified by instinct to think of retaliation. 

Pidge stayed in the shadow of her tree. These creatures smelled fear and ate it as food. But she was not afraid, there was no primal part of her that repelled her from them. Nor was there any instinctual part of her that drew her to be a hero or savior. Her hands remained under her cloak but her eyes were on Yaro whose ears had gone flat to her head and her teeth barred as she whinnied in fear in time with the screams and cries of the gathered villagers. 

Fifty people dragged out of their homes and left to kneel in the square. Finally, the leader, who had remained astride his horse disembarked. He cloak fluttered as his heels and his armor was without dent. He paced in front of the gathered group.

“I can sense the mage amongst you,” he said, his voice carried over the square. “They are here, it will do you little to hide them.”

The villagers looked amongst themselves, whispered. A baby screamed and cried. Their eyes shifted, trying to find the culprit who damned them, their whites visible in the dark. An old man in the front with a gray beard down to his chest moved forward on his knees.

“Lord Lotor,” he pleaded. “All our mages you stole! One cannot be born without you knowing!”

“The mage is here,” Lotor repeated, his voice monotone and cold like ice. It wove in her veins, resonating with her, calling out to her. “I will start with the youngest child and work my way up until you reveal your secret.”

From the arms of a mother a baby was ripped and thrown to the ground howling by a solider. The soldier's sword crested, glinted in the silhouette of the moon.

“Is it me?” Pidge shouted and stepping away from the tree. A wind pushed past her shoulders, rustling the leaves. 

The soldier with the sword stopped short and the mother snatched her baby away, cuddling it to her chest as she sobbed.

“You'd have come anyway,” Pidge called out. “But I imagine the Prince of the Empire is here for me.”

Lotor turned from the crowd slowly and he removed his helmet. She didn't know what she expected. His hair was as silver as the moonlight and his skin a light shade of purple. His features were delicate, a contrast to the rugged features of the other Galra around him. The half-breed bastard prince of the Emperor. 

“And who are you?” Lotor asked, fixing her with his glowing gold eyes. 

“A passerby,” Pidge said. “These people have nothing to do with this.”

The soldiers began to move around her. Pidge remained standing in place, her hands twitched and Yaro screamed, straining against the post. Pidge kept her eyes on Lotor as she walked over to Yaro. Her eyes slid over to her horse who calmed as she approached. Pidge held Yaro's head in her arms and scratched her ears. 

“Shh, it's okay,” She said as she calmed. “I won't let them hurt you.”

Pidge moved around Yaro and removed the shield from the saddle. She tucked it under her arm as she walked back towards Lotor.

“These people have nothing to do with this,” She repeated. “Let them go.”

“I assume you won't come quiet then,” Lotor said, drawing his sword. 

“I know what you do to mages you capture,” Pidge said. “I'm not interested.”

“It only hurts for a moment,” Lotor said. “Tell me your name.”

“You can call me Pidge,” she said.

“Then Pidge,” he said. “You should know, that you are out matched.”

“We'll see.”

The wind stirred as the Galra around her began to pull on their magic. Pidge turned in a slow circle, slotting the shield around her arm as she tracked each one. The power danced around her fingers and the shadows created a swirling cloud around her, obscuring the moon. She stayed and she waited, finding her breath, focusing her mind. 

Behind her. A galra charged her, jumping with it's sword to cleave her in half. From the depth of the shield and her magic she pulled her weapon. The spear formed and caught the monster in the chest, slotting onto the blade. Pidge pushed the point through and dropped the body from it. The blanket fell off the shield, revealing it's full face. Green metal painted with the yellow roots of a growing tree.

Pidge straightened, watching as the Galra dissolved to shadow and dust. Another charged her and she spun, the blade of the spear caught it's side before she drove it through the soldier's throat. She leapt into the air, her legs aided by her magic and landed on another soldier, the spear driving down, easily slicing through the armor before she jumped again. She landed at the base of the oak tree, one foot mounting the roots. 

She spun, her spear slashing a wide arc and her magic following with it. The magic was honed to a leaf's edge and cut through three more soldiers, proving her power over their measly defenses. She breathed deep, and let the point of the spear point down and back, with the line of her arm. She rushed forward, smashing into a Galra with her shield before jamming her spear into the chest of another. She smacked the end of the spear into the chest of one, parried a spell from the last and then with one final slice, cut off the soldier's head. 

She turned on Lotor and leveled the spear at him. 

“How can you argue to use your power against these people?!” She shouted. 

“They are not like you and I,” Lotor said, walking around her. “Who are you? A child with a greater power?”

“I am a chosen knight of the Dragon Constellation,” Pidge said. “And this is the divine weaponry that the Gods have given me. I am not a child!”

“You don't fool me,” he said, he was closing in. Each step she realized how much larger he was, the power ebbing off him and crashing into her in waves. “You're a scared little girl stepping off the farm for the first time. You're not one of the real Knights who fights for the Princess. You have power, but you don't understand it.”

“I know enough,” she said.

“You still cling to your humanity,” Lotor said, lowering his stance. “So long as you do you'll never achieved you're true potential. Let's see what you really are.”

Pidge parried with the shield as Lotor swung down on her with the sword. The strike ran through her entire arm. Before she could even react he vanished a cloud of smoke and reappeared behind her. The knife slotted right into her ribs. Pidge cried out as she fell to her knees, hand coming to her side where blood seeped through the bone and skin. She coughed and choked. She was stronger then this, she could push through this pain. 

She stood up, grasping the shaft of the spear tight, putting her weight against it. Even as Lotor watched her, circling, twisting the sword in lazy circles. Pidge spat and wiped it in the dirt with the sole of her boot. She reset her stance. 

Lotor came at her swinging hard and she parried again. This time she struck him with the staff and pushed him back. She didn't let him back in, dancing on the edge of his strikes. Lotor swept at her legs and she stepped back before catching him in the side with the spear. He growled low in his throat like an animal, he would heal like her and the injury was nothing. He bore down on her with fierce strikes. All Pidge could do was put the shield between her and him. 

Pidge backed all the way until she found her opening. A slight aberration in how he placed his feet. She inserted the end of the staff between his legs and tripped him. Pidge stabbed down at the ground at him, twisting the spear in her hands with skill and speed. Lotor rolled, struck at her legs but she blocked and kicked him hard across the face. He stood again, grasping his jaw and it was her turn to come after him. Her magic sang through her veins and her muscles, it ran off the line of her spine, denting his armor and stirring up the wind with each step she took. 

Suddenly, her hand caught in a swing and the spear clattered to the ground as the joints of her fingers locked out with a painful, unwilled exertion. Pidge cried out in rage and pain as it rain up her arm, the cruel, deathly magic of the Royal Family. Her arm twisted behind her back, her shoulder jammed into it's socket. It ran down her spine, slotting each vertebrae, grinding the nerves until her entire body rocked with pain. Her other arm spasmed and wracked, the skin breaking into tiny cuts that bled, running crimson blood down the skin of her arm. 

She choked on the blood in her lungs, tearing through her esophagus and into her throat. Her teeth ground together, burnished with blood. She collapsed to her knees, her hand catching against the ground. Pidge's dried and bloodied lips parted for air which only entered her lungs in weak, rasps. Her hands were changing before her eyes, green and black scales peeled up from her fingernails, claws grew from her finger tips. Lotor pulled out of her something that had always prowled in her soul, the true predator that she was born to be.

“This is what you are,” He said, standing over her. No exertion on his features, not even a little. “Given in to it, this is true power.”

“Please,” Pidge gasped, tears streaking down her face. “Please, stop!”

He knelt before her and ran his thumb up her jaw so she was forced to look at him. “Given in to me.”

He kissed her, pressing his lips over her ears, running his tongue over her bottom lip and into her mouth, exploring the line of her teeth. He nipped at the side of her mouth drawing a strange, gnarled moan, running between the line of pleasure and pain. The scales tore into Pidge's skin and when they began to rip apart her shoulders he let her go and she collapsed back to her hands-and-knees. 

Eat. Destroy. 

Destroy. Eat.

Her tongue ran over sharper incisors. The pinned crowd. A flock of sheep herded by fear and something instinctual. The pain, give into the pain. Forget the past, worry not for the future, eat. Pidge groaned, fingers digging even deeper into the dirt, tracking trails in the dust. She hacked and coughed up black blood. Lotor had the solution, the pleasure, the release. Kiss her again, make it go away. Please. Again. 

Yaro screamed into the night, fear and terror, a horrible mourning cry. She stomped her hooves into the dust and strained against the post she was tied too. Pidge's whimpers died as she collapsed to her knees, arms giving way. Still, despite the pain, despite all the fear, something still curled in her gut like a snake. It hissed and whispered of something yet untouched. Something deeper, physical and magical. Unsounded reserves. 

She breathed in sharply, drawing her belly button up to her spine. Every muscle in her legs and her arms clenched in a single unified effort to push back. Her toes curled, her tongue pushed against the roof of her mouth, and her teeth clenched. She pushed up out of her feet, the Earth pushed against her and she pushed back, and then her thigh tightened. Lotor fought her for every nerve ending, every sinew, every bone, every bit of cartilage, and blood cell. All the way until she rose up to her full height. 

“I'm not done yet, Lotor!” She shouted. 

He threw magic at her, a blast of energy that she countered with a flick of her hand. It exploded away from her, and into him. He stumbled back and she jumped into a low stance with her foot forward. From below her hips she rose her hands up and from deep in the ground she drew-up her power. The oak tree roots followed it and emerged from the dirt. Growing on her magic they tangled into Lotor's legs and arms, pulled around his throat, twined around his torso until he was completely trapped.

The scales were seeping back into Pidge's skin. A fact of her ability and personality to be dealt with later. For now she took the revelation in stride. She lowered her hands and straightened, glaring up at Lotor as if to challenge his next move.

“Very good, Knight,” he smilled, and in a haze of smoke vanished. 

The roots returned to the Earth and Pidge was left with the heavy shiver of the exhaustion from the fight. Fifty sets of eyes landed on her, watching her, the entire village frozen. Pidge looked on them and from there she received a promise, that it would not always be like this. One day they would understand, one day the chasm would close, that day was not tonight but the sun would rise. 

Pidge untied Yaro from the post and walked him out of the village, and just as promised, the sun rose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Lotor and Pidge'll be friends one day, they just got off to a bumpy start.


End file.
